


The Pale Elf

by Ruler_of_Nope_Island



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loss of Identity, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruler_of_Nope_Island/pseuds/Ruler_of_Nope_Island
Summary: Cazador's spawn try to remember Astarion.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	The Pale Elf

Master’s rage cannot be ignored. It is a black and choking thing that fills every inch of the castle. The wolves press themselves against the stone walls, whimpering. The vassals are sent out with curses. We wait to see what has upset the Master so; he has stopped his exquisite and careful cruelties and we taste his rage in blows and clawings. 

“Astarion-” he snarls , his hands around a neck. “Where is he?”

We didn’t realise he was missing. Just thought he was gone. Spawn go all the time: they go to beyond the castle gates at dawn. They go to the dungeons to be starved. They go to the kennels to be fed to the wolves. They go without comment and without warning. It has been century since one of the Master’s children has willingly left.

We suppose it makes sense that Astarion should be the one to run. He managed to keep something of himself here where identity erodes so quickly. Master, thankfully, gives up on the idea of conspiracy. We tell him we love him so, through mouths full of blood, our bones splintering and the wild ache of hunger. He should starve us all, he says, and start again. 

But he does not: a monster hunter is dispatched. We understand that an example will be made. 

Our memories of Astarion are in fragments. We arrange them: try to see if there was anything about him that was truly different. 

*

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Master says, stroking the man’s cheek. “And we haven’t had a full-blooded elf since Aneirin.” 

Fifty years, although that means little here. The only thing that Aneirin left behind was scratches on the outside gates. Before our time, though. She was a tale told by the spawn who this elf, this Astarion, is replacing. He is beautiful, too - white hair, high cheeks, tall, lean - a new favourite, perhaps. Less attention from the Master while he works out how to break his new pet. 

There’s fire in Astarion’s eyes still. And a cruel amusement: he looks at us like a merchant regarding inferior wares. Three human sisters, chosen for red hair and sweet voices. A halfling, skilled at chess and cards. Two half-elves, well read and dark haired, although not actually related. Master pretends to get them confused and punishes them both if the wrong one comes. There may be others, of course, but we struggle to keep track of each other almost as much as we struggle with the passing of time. 

“Your new family,” Master says. “You’ll all be the best of friends in no time.”

Our new brother looks at us and rolls his eyes. 

Beautiful Astarion, cruel Astarion. Enjoy learning how long eternity can be.

*

Master has very firm rules about how his spawn conduct themselves. But he doesn’t tell us what they are. He picked us, so we must be very intelligent and very special, so we must be particularly stupid or cruel to our poor, loving Master for not obeying him. These aren’t, we should say, the first four: those are rules in the same way that gravity is a rule.

We are not to run down the long gallery. We are not to spend more than half an hour in conversation with each other. We are not to cry, otherwise the cause of the crying will be done twice as hard and twice as long and someone else will step in once Master is bored. 

We watch as Astarion flouts these rules; he offers his opinion without being asked, he will tug on our hair when he thinks the Master doesn’t see. He tries to talk to us about our homes, our families, and always has some remark when we say that the only home and family we have, the only one that will ever matter. 

Master bids Astarion to take off his clothes and lay his beautiful head in Master’s lap while Master reads. We suppose we should have warned him about what comes next but he was so smug, lying there, that we thought the long nails drawing bloody welts would be punishment enough.

Living so long this way does not breed kindness.

*

When Master first came to this castle he had the windows of the chapel bricked up. It was so lovely, he told us once, but no use for his purposes. There was room in there for two hundred to pray; now only the choir stalls remain. 

There is a large platform in the centre of the chapel now; on each corner there is an iron chain with manacles. The alcoves where the former inhabitants kept holy relics and prayer books are now lined with velvet covered shelves, which hold strange devices of polished metal or vials or silken rope. We do not talk about the chapel, so Astarion does not know what to expect when Master takes him there.

He orders the surviving sister onto the platform with Astarion and bid us watch. Astarion only betrays himself with a quip about how he works better without an audience. Master says nothing, but after Astarion is done with her he sends us to Astarion, one after the other, and watches us without a word. We remember Astarion’s smile and he lay panting on his back, naked and sated. 

“Enjoy yourself, my darling?”

“Yes, of course-” Astarion sits up and gazes at the shelves with open curiosity. “I don’t know what half those things are.”

Master’s eyes narrow.

“A demonstration is in order,” he says, silkily, and sends us all away.

Three days later Master bids us untie Astarion and wash him in the courtyard. Not only our eyes on him but the Master’s human vassals, who leer and whistle as we clean the oil and scabs away from his pale flesh and wash the blood out of his hair. 

We lay him down in his narrow cot in the dormitory and he whimpers. He’s too weak to leave his bed so we have to hold the squirming rats to his lips so he doesn’t starve. 

*

Master’s favourite means of enlarging our family is the bargain: death alone or undeath with him. We suspect that Master never takes no for an answer although since we are barred from talking about our turning we cannot confirm our suspicions. 

We all have different ways of living - hah - with this. Some cultivate a sense of victimhood. Poor me, who did not understand what was offered! Others are stoic: my own poor choices lead me to this place. Some embrace it, believing that Master only saw in them a reflection of himself, and raised them up to serve him. 

The knotted flail is in Astarion’s hand. The Master stands behind him, correcting his stance, the angle of his arm. Murmurs about the strength in Astarion’s arms, caressing that slim waist, the ivory skin. Master makes him lick the wounds he creates. Spawn blood tastes like ashes. 

What comes around, as they say. We lock him in a chest and he’s late for dinner. Master peels him like a pear.

*

We curse the day the tiefling poet came to the castle. Master already knew Infernal but lacked any desire to apply it. But the tiefling poet showed him the beautiful whorls of hell-tongue sonnets and Master was smitten. The poet told him he had a rare talent. 

We were all to be his masterpieces. He was deft with the whip but not the wicked little blade he devised - that took practice. Years of practice. So many of us cut to ribbons as he worked out meter and rhyme. If he finds an error he skins you and starts again.

Astarion is a favourite canvas and the best-loved poem. He spends the better part of a decade naked. 

*

We all have our roles within the castle. Master adores embroidery and calligraphy so the workshops are always full. His books need organising. The walls must be guarded. Astarion is a fisherman - that is to say, he catches things for the master to eat. Once every few years he is allowed to venture beyond the castle walls into Baldur’s Gate and tempt beautiful things into his net and onto the great dining table. Master chews on a shrieking virgin and Astarion gets a filthy rat. 

We prepare him: washed and dressed, his hair combed and perfume daubed onto cool skin. One of us chooses the wrong doublet and gets a perfunctory slap for it. He’s nervous. Master is always very attentive after Astarion returns, whether he likes the meal or not. It’s the Master’s bed or the rack and neither is an attractive prospect.

“Goodbye, my darlings,” he says. “Stay out of trouble.”

And then he goes missing. We hope we’ll never see him again. We hope his face will vanish amongst all the others who have gone.

You do not want to be remembered by the spawn of Cazador Sar. It means your end was truly remarkable; the last thing you want when the creature we serve is infinite in invention and fathomless in his cruelty. 

Astarion will never be so beautiful again.

**Author's Note:**

> It's pretty fucked up how into the PC getting whipped Astarion is given how he mentions he used to get flayed on the regular, right?


End file.
